Music Zen!

Wonder where all the good redneck white hick rap has been hiding all this time?

Look no further:

Edit:

Chuggo’s Last.FM page. I love the tags and artist description.

Chuggo’s Myspace

Chuggo is living proof that Canada is not as great as white people make it seem.

From Idolator comes news that teenagers who can’t spell don’t like what last.fm tells me is a noise rock / shoegaze band called No Age (I’ve only heard their name before, so I’m just going to trust the wisdom of crowds here when it comes to their sound).

I love comments on internet videos.

When a comment begins with, “but i agree with mamii4u2envii,” there’s just something that brings a smile to my eyes and a bounce to my step. What did mamii say, though? “sucked.lol.i love punk and rock music but this video sucked.the guitar was so loud you couldn’t even hear the vocalist.and the video looked low rent.lol.i thought it was going to be a cool song but i couldn’t even hear the lyrics=[[“

I see. Punk is known for its hi-fi production and gorgeous music videos.

“This video is cool, but the sound effects are like a vaqqum machine…seriously this song is weeeiirrdd =/”

My God, could you imagine what they’d say if you put a Lightning Bolt-type band up?

Okay, okay, “It’s 2 min. into the video and I still don’t understand what the hell is going on! I’m surprised anybody watched the video this long!”

But you know, I’m actually going to give MTV props for putting something up that appears to have challenged how these people see music. Maybe it’s not the greatest song of all time, but at least it’s not Vampire Weekend or Panic at the Disco — bands which are rigidly formulaic.

In what reads like an orgasmic tale of being bit by a rabid dog, the man from the Glastonbury festival who was hit by Amy Winehouse describes the experience.

Hot Topic is going to be getting into the digital music realm. That almost seems like it’s been a long time coming. What bothers me more is this Project (RED) thing that sounds like a total con scheme. But hey, at least you get a “crackerjack surprise” once a week!

Whaaaat? Conor Oberst sits down to cry with talk to Marissa Moss at the Huffington Post. My personal issues with him and his music aside, at least he’s honest enough to admit this about The President Talks to God: “I don’t even know how much of a song it is–it’s more like a commercial to a point of view.”

Okay, I’m not joking: whichever judge is citing Joni Mitchell in their rulings should probably, like, stop.

Stereogum tells us new tune by The Verve has surfaced for those interested.

Oh dear. Peter Gabriel is going to cover Vampire Weekend on his forthcoming CD (apparently it’s been delayed about as long as GnR’s Chinese Democracy?). “I think playing with yourself makes you go blind after a while.” Hopefully someone will let the guys over in Vampire Weekend know that.

For anyone who is 13 who still gives a damn about Slipknot, apparently the band is going to release a new single tomorrow.

Sort of old news at this point, but for anyone who is curious, here’s part of Barack Obama’s iPod playlist. It is actually really true that a guy like Ludacris is a great businessman. I’m not sure why or how he came to be one, but he is. Besides, who can’t relate to this?

An ongoing feud between Jay-Z and Oasis took place regarding the Glastonbury festival. Noel Gallagher (that dude from Oasis, you know?) wuz all like, “No bitch, I ain’t takin’ no negro at mah music festival.” And Jay-Z was all, “I’m gonna play Wonderall so that everyone gets one more chance to hear how hard it sucks.” …Or something.

This would be the 2001 sophomore album/masterpiece by the NYC-based trio, though the band’s roots in Denton, TX might go further to explaining the sound of this thing. The best word I can think of for it is “hot,” but that requires some clarification. This is the soundtrack to a humid summer night, a record full of dark textures that lumber and creep forward, dripping with woozy sweat.

This tone is clear right from the beginning with “Fear of Fireflies.” A low bass anchors the track while acoustic and electric guitars, organs, subtle synths and various percussion snake around it, winding in with Aurelio Valle’s strained-yet-disaffected voice and slightly spooky lyrics (“A sea of fireflies hover at the dark, following tracers, scattering apart, following me”).

“Traffic Sound” is harsher, driven by a kick drum and hollow guitar tone that emphasizes the empty space in the song. “Slum Creeper” sounds like what a song with that title should sound like–it shakes forward in a sinister, dirty lurch. “Mayzelle” and “A Fondness for Crawling” are instrumental numbers that both slowly build tension while unleashing atonal, ghost-in-the-machine noises.

“Hover Over Nowhere” is the record at its “prettiest,” a hazy, lazy ballad that takes its time, unfolding slowly over seven and a half minutes. “Tijerina” follows a similar formula, but builds to a more fevered climax before coming back down. What’s really interesting is the final track, a cover of the relatively spare “Promenade” by U2 (from 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire, if you care), that doubles the original song’s length. Even if it is relatively up, compared to the prior 9 tracks, it comes off as a surprisingly perfect addition/end note.

If you’re half-awake, trying to fall asleep sans-AC on a warm night (as I was when I decided to write this), this would be a fitting soundtrack to that state. As illustration, an audio youtube of “Fear of Fireflies” for ya:

If you dig this, they also have 4 other pretty good albums: Calla (1999), Televise (2003), Collisions (2005) and Strength in Numbers (2007).

With the advent of computers came mp3s and the internet followed by iPods and iTunes followed by decreased CD sales and increased online sales. No one that doesn’t work for a major record label will dispute that this is a good thing. The flow of music from person to person takes place at a rate exponentially faster than it would have even a decade ago. In 1998, it took a lot more work to discover music that wasn’t just on the radio, it was much more difficult to find decent bands in the alternative realm. Thanks to the internet, all of this happened and is happening. This is the best thing that has happened to music since recording came into play.

With that being said, I’m here to ask: remember record stores? Not like the music section of Hastings or Barnes and Noble, but real record stores.

Personally, I love record stores. One in particular. It’s called Homer’s. There are a few Homer’s in the Lincoln-Omaha-Council Bluffs area, but the original one in downtown Omaha is the best record store that I’ve ever been to.

It’s in an old building in Omaha’s downtown historic (according to tourist centers) Old Market. A magnificent area, really. The store is long with an old wooden floor. There’s always incense burning, which I don’t really dig, but it has a certain feeling to it, y’know? There’s a tub of posters advertising concerts past days that run about two dollars. All along the left wall are vinyls. I’m not really into buying vinyl, but one day I did find A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles for like eighteen dollars. Seriously, I’m not dumb. Every band I’ve ever heard of has a little separation marker in the CD section. Obviously there are plenty of bands that I haven’t heard of there. They have a huge “Staff Picks” section with really great staff picks in every genre. Everyone that I’ve encountered that works there is really cool. The store is really a fantastic place.

Record stores will be a thing of the past in a few years. And, to be honest, that makes me pretty sad. iTunes just can’t inject me with the feeling of holding a solid form of music in my hands in a room full of music and music memorabilia. Sorry, Steve, but you just can’t compete.

So tell me about your record stores.

This (best version I could find on youtube)–

Also, this is kinda cool:

This has been an issue for me for a long time: Is punk good or bad? The answer for me used to be “good,” hands down. Instinctively, I just knew I loved punk. But then when I started thinking about all the different meanings and possible associations with punk (the lifestyle, the trend, the concept, the music, the merchandise), I started to think the answer was a hands down, “bad.” Before this gets really messy and I talk a little about what I think each part of punk is worth, I should say that the vast, vast majority (talking at least 80-85%) of my music is either punk or it has very close roots to punk (as I write this, I am listening to the band Faraquet, a punk band). Even My Bloody Valentine’s highly influenced by punk; Kevin Shields has said that The Ramones were one of his favorite acts as a kid. Their loud-as-hell performances that he mentioned have clearly shown up in My Bloody Valentine shows — especially during things like “The Holocaust” in You Made Me Realise. So the fact of the matter is, I listen to punk. I like — no, love — punk. But what is punk?

When you ask the average person about punk, they probably get images of John Lydon, better known as Johnny Rotten. If not Lydon, it’s the even more infamous Sid Vicious. You can almost see from here how punk was made corporate and all the confusion got tossed in.

Quickly, we see punk rock the mentality (ie, those outside the mainstream, the avant garde musician, and those who would later be called “indie” acts) and the punk rock “sound” as a split in the overall definition of punk. It’s like if you have a tree and at the root of the tree is the word punk. From there, there’s a fork that instantly goes into what is termed, regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy, the “sound” of punk by most people (Anti-Flag, Sex Pistols, Ramones, Rise Against, Rancid, etc) and the psyche of punk. The psyche is, for instance, what motivates musicians to do something rebellious, something outside the mainstream, something that is just so freaky and out there that no one may even realize at the time how brilliant it is.

But another split occurs: the psyche halves itself. Part of it becomes the image of the punk psyche. The mohawk, the combat boots, the piercings. The image and the sound, in present times, are both very corporate and, honestly, in the sense of punk’s true psyche, un-punk. When Hot Topic is selling the needless vanities of punk’s soul, something is wrong. That is not about rebellion. That is not about being different. The other half of this split is the psyche’s will to be different. Having a mohawk is no longer all that different. You can turn on the TV and see ads for menopause supplements with a girl in heavy eye shadow and, as the ay-daults might say, an outrageous getup. In 1980, I can’t imagine the image of punk being that common place. But these days, you can turn your TV on and see the old image of punk everywhere.

Pausing here — hopefully this explains my twisted thoughts on punk a little. I want to say I like punk, but at the same time, because punk is so many different things, how can anyone really like it? How can anyone really hate it? I must first narrow down what I think punk really is before I can offer an opinion. Saying I like punk is like saying I like… books. Yeah, I like books, but what kind? I don’t read adult novels, graphic novels, self-help guides, joke books, money books, and so on, but then, there are books I really love. There’s the kitschy side of literature, if you can even really call it literature, like Twilight, and then there’s the side of literature that’s actually, you know, interesting, such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

So there’s my dilemma: if I say I love books, that really tells you nothing. It tells me nothing. What do I like about books? Why do I like books? What books do I like? It’s the exact same thing with punk.

I’ve never liked the combat boots side of punk. I used to like the Anti-Flag, Rancid, Rise Against side of punk before I realized what was going on there. I despise, and always have, the trend of punk, which has arisen from both the image and sound stereotypes. It’s a greedy, frivolous disgrace. But with all the loathing I feel towards “punk,” do I also like punk a little, too? I do claim to listen to it, after all, so I’d hope I like it.

And I do. I really do. But it’s a very specific thing for me. I like artists who aren’t afraid to try new things. In the ’80s and ’90s, they were called punk rockers. They were called punk rockers until MTV and Hot Topic violated their PUNK RAWKER™ trademark and made it their own. These days, we call them “indie.” But punk is like that. Punk is Boris, but punk is also the Meat Puppets; the same way that both of those bands are also called indie bands these days. Neither punk or indie are genres in the sense that they have a defined sound or a defined image. MTV certainly gave punk a defined image. Now, due to Vampire Weekend, indie is getting a taste of that Kool-Aid itself. That said, punk runs everywhere from Teen Idles to Sonic Youth to My Bloody Valentine to the Brian Jonestown Massacre to the Pixies to… any band that is creative, independent, and rebellious.

So I have gone from liking punk, to hating punk, to appreciating it now more than I have before. But at the same time now, I would feel uncomfortable saying I like punk rock outside of close relationships, because someone in a Paramore t-shirt might accost me with their tales of punk rock extravaganzas. I might be asked who my favorite Fueled by Ramen band is. It could go so wrong so fast, and it leaves me feeling awkward and confused.

That’s why I try not to think about it too much. My lack of thought may be evident here.

What do you readers think punk rock is?

This is a tricky record. The first time I heard it, it blew me away, both lyrically and musically–it’s spare and pretty and haunting, but those are wussy adjectives which don’t fit this, since it’s equally towering and ominous and threatening. The lyrics feature a similar dichotomy and the more I listen to this album, the more convinced I become that there is a story here–some kind of linking narrative that ties these eleven songs together. When most people think of “concept albums” they think of something like The Wall or Tommy, but to make a comparison, those are Michael Bay movies, where this is more like a David Lynch film. The pieces to this are scattered like breadcrumbs in the misty forest the cover depicts, and because my brain loves obscure, open-ended puzzles, these are some musings trying to follow that trail.

First, for reference, the lyrics to the album can be found here. Note that there are two versions of the album (the 2006 original issue and the 2007 reissue for which a few songs were rerecorded), and a few slight lyrical differences between them, but the basic ideas remain the same.

But before we get to the songs themselves, there’s the title. My Spanish is kind of rusty, but “palo santo” would mean something to the effect of “holy stick,” if I’m not mistaken. That immediately conjures up a phallic image, which fits with a lot of the other imagery on the record, but the “holy” adjective gives it a certain connotation–it makes it sound like an old term, gives it a sense of… not theatricality, exactly, but presence. So the sense I get is that sexuality is going to be a big part of this story, but not exactly the focal point–more like the implications of that sexuality. Hm.

1. La Dame et la Licorne
French for “The Lady and the Unicorn,” which refers to a series of six tapestries about sensual pleasure and desire. The first lines introduce theme of wind and water (and something in the water), which appear frequently throughout. They also seem to be almost an introduction, because Jonathan sings them very quietly, only to shout the next line, “Bring back my boy!” ferociously. The “I loved him” (and later calling the border guards handsome) suggest this song is from the point of view of a woman. “Will you let me through to the enemy lines one more time?” There’s a war going on, and the “Bring back my boy, I loved him” suggest to me that the boy in question probably died in that war. “My head is a flame, my body distant, and I am fading out” combined with the later lines “Hold my arm, will you, hold my arm harder”–this is not a stable woman. Something is happening to her. “The roads and the fences”–she’s traveled to see him, to meet him, maybe to die with him. The last line is another image that gets repeated throughout the album–”there are diamonds in the water.”

2. Red Sea, Black Sea
The first verse of this is terrifying and reenforces the death idea. “And bathed in this light we will swim again.” If this “terrible light” replaces the sun and the moon, it could be death (as in “go into the light, my son”), and it will reunite them (in water). Water is an element associated with emotion, so perhaps the water is love? I dunno… that might work. Either way, this seems to be from the male point of view, and it seems as though he’s talking about going to war and certain death: “Turn your transmitters off, we are not coming back and the pearls of our eyes are turning black.” The war idea is reinforced by “The whole thing’s changed in unthinkable ways and now you’ve come to inherit it,” with the idea of inheritance suggesting a parent-child relationship. But the other use of second person–”Why did you come to corral everyone when you’re just pushing the darkness around?”–almost seems like an address to death itself, or maybe to those behind the war? Hm.

3. White Waves
This has another terrifying line in “There’s something singing in the ice in the deepest part of the world.” I don’t know what that means, but it’s scary. The line “He took me out to the tide to make pearls of my eyes and uncover me again without asking” seems like this switches back to the feminine point of view, is the second time eyes are referred to as pearls and continues the water theme. The diamonds are called up again, and here they definitely seem tied to a woman’s sexuality (“between him and the diamonds I would not give, but maybe tonight I will”). If that’s the case, it would make sense that there would be diamonds in the water, but this isn’t a happy song by a long shot–”I’m bound and flayed alive” is not a pleasant, loving experience. There’s a “black cloud over the water,” a “film across [her] eyes” and the waves are turning white (which means rough water). Love isn’t what she thought–it’s changed, become more violent now that sex has been introduced. And then there’s “Hold that child in your arms”–is this the same child that was inheriting the new world in the last song?

4. Palo Santo
Because this is the title track (and has the associations of the album title), there has to be some major significance to it in the story. I’m not sure who’s narrating this one, but it mentions the wind, the water and the island again. The gut reaction I have to the island is that it’s a goal, a paradise (it was “in the sun” in the first song). If the title is a phallic reference, then “holy sap, smoky light” is fairly clear. The “holy melody” that will bring these things, though… I dunno, this is a tricky one. But it’s peaceful, serene… a good thing.

5. Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five
This, on the other hand, is one of the more violent songs on the album. The first few lines call back to the war–suggest being a soldier (“he’s getting used to it now, how each one falls away in that hoary light”) and how it’s changing the male character. This change is also reflected in the use of the word “hoary” (meaning icy), which reflects the icy change the woman felt in “White Waves.” The second verse is maybe a coldness after that change, “where every angel looks dead, where every face is a lie.” However, I think it shifts points of view after that point, because of the line “Daddy come back to me now.” Is this the child from “White Waves” narrating? The line “when they pull me out alive” suggests that child is being born as his(?) father is off fighting/dying in the war, which would fit with what we’ve seen thus far.

6. Nobody
This is a heartbreaking song. It’s narrated by a third party, but about the woman. They’ve had sex (“his little hook, your little eyelet,” “and when he comes” etc), but there’s a disconnect there (“his mouth still denies what your heart just knows”). The second verse references bombs falling, but I think this is tying the idea of war and sex together into the same event (what one is to him, the other is to her, or something like that). The part that mystifies me a bit is “nobody would ever know [...] how you would reply.” She’s doing something unexpected… but what?

7. Sing, Little Birdie
This has a similar feel to “Palo Santo.” I think this is the male narrating, though, since the woman has associated herself with birds before (as in “La Dame et la Licorne”), so he seems to be calling her, saying “tug at my darker side.” The second verse suggests he’s using her: “fly to the bed we are confined, combing the cancers out of our lives.” And there is a sense of dominance in the last line (“And who’s tongue gave you life but mine?”). Is this a misperception on his part? The prior track would seem to suggest so…

8. Johnny Viola
The title and the ending line (about love leaving like silvery birds) make this seem like it’s about the man. The first verse is clearly about being unsatisfied and unable to love (“Is there a medical term for a heart that’s been removed?”). The eyes are veiled, which calls back to the image in “White Waves” (I think this is his version of that song)–they’ve changed, can no longer see what they once saw. Again, waves have become frozen, replaced by ice and snow (verse 2), which also suggests the inability to love. The ending is somewhat unsettling–”Your eyes are as wild and lifeless as the moon.”

9. Failed Queen
This is where things kind of turn around, I think. “These were the words of the wounded man,” opens this song, so this is a third person speaking about the man, who speaks the middle verse, where he says “Her coldest eye should have changed my mind.” That makes it seem that she left him, not the other way around. “Though the queen has died, she has multiplied.” Aha! Did she die in childbirth? Is that how she replied in “Nobody?” (That would make the line about “the ancient shapes of crows” from that song make sense–crows are death omens). If so, then “La Dame et la Licorne” isn’t about her trying to join him in death, but about trying to return FROM death TO him and “Johnny Viola” is him learning of her death when he returns from fighting. Hmm. “Crawled through a hole in a lake of ice”–is this the son narrating about his father? Maybe.

10. Hail Mary
This is a prayer, obviously, but it starts “Hail Mary, full of death, sing me a bitter song,” so… “The hail from this blackened cloud”–another ice reference. It’s destroying the insignificant things (“our argument about the temperature and the time”). “And we march in our rows and rows under a burning hand past the scars of a wounded land”–so we’re back in the war here. The sarcasm in “God save the chamberlain…”–he’s lost what he’s fighting for, so all that’s around him is death now. “The child who is nearly born waits just to do you harm like the shock of a broken arm”–the child reminds him of what he lost? He can’t feel love at all, even for it? “Nearly born,” though… did it die with her? If so, what about the “pull me out alive” line? Hmm.

11. Going is Song
“Oh Daddy, I’m lost in your overcoat”–so that part is a child to a father. And this part is “If I live or die I am free again.” But then it becomes “Oh joy of mine, swelling inside of me” and “while you live, when you die, you will be free again,” which is a mother to her child. So the woman could be talking to her father in the beginning (something I haven’t considered in the rest of this, really), or the song could switch points of view. This also has roads and snow and wind many of the images from “La Dame et la Licorne”–it seems to mirror that song in a lot of ways, but where that was pleading, this is peaceful. It ends with the line “You are free.”

See? It’s a complex record. This is the kind of writing I love–it’s all layered in and around upon itself. If anyone has the time/interest, I’d love to hear some additional interpretations or other thoughts.

And because I can, a couple live videos.

White Waves

Red Sea, Black Sea

Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five

In the tradition of great celebrity bloggers like Josh Homme and Courtney Love before him, Kanye West nearly (??) breaks his Macbook Air in a typing fit.

I am sick of negative people who just sit around trying 2 plot my downfall… Why???? I understand if people don’t like me because I like me or if people think tight clothes look gay or people say I run my mouth to much, But this Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I’ve ever had in my life. This is the most offended I’ve ever been… this is the maddest I ever will be. I’m typing so fucking hard I might break my fucking Mac book Air!!!!!!!! Call me any name you want…. arrogant, conceited, narcissistic, racist, metro, fag whatever you can think of…. BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN’T GIVE MY ALL!

This woman’s music confounds me. There are times I hate it profoundly–when it’s nonsensical and self-parodic, when her annunciation is infuriating, etc. Then there are times when I’ll put a record on and feel it, the way you feel the best music you’ve ever heard–when she’s obviously brilliant and her idiosyncratic tendencies are what make her endearing. I’ve been listening on shuffle this afternoon (always an adventure) and the title track from Little Earthquakes came up. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it, but it called me back to a lot of thoughts…

Even though I was a late comer, I got her records pretty much in order, starting with that one. It’s intricately tied to a lot of memories I have from that period (roughly 13-14). It’s such a perfect album for being that age–”Precious Things” is perfectly angsty, “Leather” is awkwardly figuring out sexuality, “Happy Phantom” has that fuck-it-and-you cheeriness that makes you want to dance in supermarket aisles to confuse the work-a-day staff. Then there’s “Me and a Gun,” which I still can’t listen to–one of very few songs I can say that about–and I have a certain admiration for that; putting an experience like that in a form that communicates it so well takes a lot. The album’s two best songs, though are the title track and “Mother,” each a towering seven minutes long. “Little Earthquakes” is this big, heavy rumination about getting around difficult moments (“Oh, these little earthquakes, doesn’t take much to rip us into pieces”)–I love the way it lumbers forward slowly and the chorus melody is wonderful. “Mother” distills a complex feeling very elegantly, a feeling of transition from one thing to another, excitement mixed with trepidation, the fear of losing one’s self, and the hesitant piano compliments some of her strongest lyrics. This has always been one of my favorite songs.

The best live version I could find of “Mother” (with a great intro)–

Then, around the same period, I got Under the Pink. I remember loving it at the time. I still think it has some very fine songs on it, this being one of them:

I’m still not sure what the hell she’s talking about for a lot of that, but it has that melancholic feel to it that some of her best work does. But listening to the rest of the album now, I don’t get a lot of it. There are some cool aspects to it–the broken down piano on “Bells for Her” is extremely effective, “Cornflake Girl” is catchy enough and “Yes, Anastasia” hits on some amazing moments, even if it does wander a bit (one of her longest songs at 9:33), but not much else really impacts me. I think this too may relate to memory. The time this was in heavy rotation was also the time I had my first “boyfriend.” It meant the world when it was happening, but with the benefit of a decade of hindsight, I have no idea what I saw in him–it’s not that I dislike him, it’s just sort of… eh. Which is how I feel about this record. It’s nice to remember, there were some good times, but… I dunno, it’s just not quite there.

Boys for Pele, which I got for my 15th birthday, is another matter. This is a willfully difficult album–70 minutes, 18.5 songs (the first track is two songs), an actual bull on backing vocals (“Professional Widow”), etc–which means I tend to feel rather strongly either way about it. Take “Mr Zebra,” (performed here on Jools Holland)

There’s a certain preciousness to that, which sometimes you want to step into because you’re feeling smart and silly, but sometimes you want to bitchslap across the face for exactly those qualities. The best tracks on this album come as it gets close to its end. “Doughnut Song” is the most quietly spiteful thing I’ve ever heard and I can think of a couple people I’d like to play that for. Then, two tracks later, “Putting the Damage On” is the flipside to that–it’s shaking and vulnerable in a way that’s difficult to capture without overdoing it (not to mention the great horn part). Naturally, that one got a lot of rotation after that first relationship ended, which makes listening to it now somewhat awkward–I see me saying “Boy, you still look pretty…” and it feels weird. A lot of things get stirred up by this record, which is both a wonderful thing and really annoying.

Also, I can’t not mention this (since it’s off that album and tied to that time). The previously mentioned young man was a big Tool fan, so this was a weird marriage of our worlds. It’s odd to have that represented so clearly.

From the Choirgirl Hotel I also got for my 15th birthday, but I didn’t get into it until after I explored Pele, which makes sense–it’s less indulgent, but much darker:

That’s actually one of my favorite videos from a purely video standpoint–all these little clues to a mystery that never gets solved, beautiful and hellish all at once. That’s sort of what trying to remember this is like. There are great memories like dancing to “Raspberry Swirl” in my bedroom with a …friend, but then there’s “Playboy Mommy” and the rather difficult personal associations I have with that (that I don’t want to get into in a forum like this). This is a record that’s gotten older with me–”Jackie’s Strength” I understand way more now than I did then, for example (it’s about the perspective of age, among other things), which is interesting. But it’s frustrating because I don’t know where it’s going and I don’t always have the patience for it–”iieee” just came up and it’s like “oh, shut up.” I don’t feel as strongly about this as I do Pele, but that’s what makes it more dangerous–it’s like that subtle drug that you don’t notice until well after it’s kicked in. Part of me wants to say it’s my second favorite behind Scarlet, but I don’t know if I can do that, for that reason. I’m not really sure how to feel about it.

I got To Venus & Back a bit after it came out (thinking about it, I don’t actually remember when…) and I still think it’s generally underrated in her canon. The live disc is this or that… “Cornflake Girl” and “Little Earthquakes” have great versions, but “Waitress” doesn’t need to go on for nearly 11 minutes on a disc. The album itself has some throwaways (“Datura”) that I’m fairly indifferent to. But this song, on the other hand (particularly this version) IS sex:

That restrained yell at the end (3:30 or so)… oh god. So there’s that. “Glory of the ’80s” is my sophomore year of high school summed up in a soundtrack–it’s got that weird confidence/insecurity thing (“then when it all seemed clear, just then you go and disappear”) when all the weird things in my life started to happen all at once. “Riot Proof” has that kind of confident swagger I tried (and failed) to adopt around this point, “Concertina” is quite pretty, etc. Yet all that said, the album feels like a high schooler in that it’s overproduced–you can tell there’s something good in there, but it’s trying to figure out what it is. When it’s over, you feel like a lot happened, but you don’t really remember most of it, things that are significant at the time don’t necessarily have a lasting impact (thank God).

Strange Little Girls is… well, strange. Speaking of not knowing what you want to be, it’s really weird hearing somebody as distinctive as Tori is playing the material of others and, in many cases, completely turning it inside out. It’s the only album of hers that has a song on it I really, consistently hate. You can’t do that to “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” I get what she’s going for, but you can’t do that. No. “Time,” “Enjoy the Silence,” and “I’m Not in Love” aren’t terrible, but they lose the character of the originals. “Raining Blood” and “‘97 Bonnie & Clyde” are interesting interpretations (and the latter is extremely unsettling) but I can’t actually say I really like them, etc. The one really sublime moment on this album is “Rattlesnakes.” This doesn’t quite capture it, but it’s close:

The original (Lloyd Cole, in case you were unaware) is a great song, but she does something to it–pulls it back and makes it a more complex character by making it first person, despite the language. It’s getting difficult to articulate (partially because I’m getting tired), but that stuck with me. Again a lot of the lyrics hit close to home, but there’s a sense of understanding that Lloyd couldn’t quite communicate even if he had it.

Scarlet’s Walk came at an interesting time for me. It’s an album that is, in part, about traveling across America, which came out a couple months (5) before I *did* travel across America. It has songs about being friends with those in the adult industry (“Amber Waves”), and I *was* friends with some of those ladies. That sort of thing. Maybe that’s why I find this as interesting as I do, but it’s her most fascinating album narratively. There’s also the sense, for the first time really, that she’s stepping outside herself on this and I like that–it’s exploring the world beyond. That’s what I was doing too. “Another Girl’s Paradise” is an amazing track (listen to that chorus melody), “Wednesday” has a kind of blustery business to it, and so on. Characters have names like “Carbon” and “Crazy” (with a song dedicated to each), events don’t mean any one thing, but work on levels. This is my favorite of her albums. The music flirts dangerously with being flat, but it never is–it’s subtle, but actually quite varied.

Incidentally, the lead single for this also produced a video that should’ve been in my “WTF Videos” post:

The Beekeeper, however, is flat. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday, but it’s been 3 years and it’s still fairly impenetrable and overlong (just shy of 80 minutes). I don’t have a lot to say about it. This came out as my taste was branching outwards and was the moment I felt I’d outgrown her, where endless self-examination (which is what this album feels like) was kid stuff. I wanted to erase that past. I didn’t listen to her for some time. I wrote her off.

And then she came out with a perfect pop single.

So I bought American Doll Posse. It’s also somewhat overlong, but definitely more interesting–I’m still sorting through most of it. I don’t know if I’ve listened to the whole record in one sitting beyond the first time. In that sense it’s a nice distillation of how I feel about her now. There are some moments of incredible impact (“Girl Disappearing” on this album), but she requires a lot of patience to deal with, which I don’t always have. She can be overly obvious (“Yo George”), annoyingly inscrutable (“Programmable Soda”), pleasantly sassy (“You Can Bring Your Dog”), etc.

I think what’s most interesting, and the closest thing this long-ass post has to a point, is the realization that, ten or even five years ago, I would’ve sat down with this record and plucked every word apart until I was woven all through it and each song had something attached to it. And now I don’t do that. There was a time when she was my #1 artist, now she’d probably make the top 20, but not the top 10, necessarily. It’s a similar feeling to what I was talking about in the “Ten Years Gone” post, but even more crystallized with one particular artist–to watch her change as I’ve changed (even though the time was a little skewed at the start there). And because her music is so inherently personal, that comparison gets accentuated even more. Tori refers to her songs as though they were living people and I can understand why–people have a strange dialog with music, you share memories and feelings, you come together with it and grow apart from it like you would a friend. That’s not a novel observation, but it’s a strange thing to actually think about, especially with someone as distinctive as she is, because that distinction makes perspective all the more important (scroll down to the bottom), where more general music is exactly that.

Thinking about it, I know I’ll keep buying her records as long as she keeps making them, in the same way I keep in touch with a few old friends from high school. Even if she’s never going to mean to me what she once did and I get pissy with her a lot, there’s enough history there to appreciate growing up together.